Andy Burnham: Today the Treasury publishes Managing Public Money. Formally it will replace Government Accounting from October. It is part of a suite of documents of which the Code of Good Practice on Corporate Governance in Central Government Departments is the apex. It can be found on the Treasury website. Copies are available in the Library of the House.
	The new document makes no significant change to the high standards of stewardship expected of those responsible for handling public resources. Rather, it brings out clearly and concisely how important it is that public money is well managed and achieves good value. At the same time it emphasises that Parliament expects these standards to be honoured and will hold public servants accountable against them.

Jane Kennedy: HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has identified an administrative problem with a number of older tax credit awards. It has come to my attention that officials did not follow the correct procedure when reopening some of these cases. This now needs to be remedied.
	HMRC have estimated that they need to review around 160,000 awards in total from 2003-04 and 2004-05, out of the 6 million households that are benefiting from tax credits. These are cases where information that reduced the households' entitlement came to light after the award for that year had been finalised and closed.
	HMRC will shortly be writing to these households to inform them that their case is being reviewed in order to correct this administrative error. HMRC will contact them again once they have completed their review.
	Those affected will not need to take any further action themselves, and no household who has their case reviewed as a result of this issue will have their tax credit award reduced.
	Although the revised award was an accurate reflection of the households' new circumstances, the process by which HMRC took this into account was not correct. HMRC should have notified recipients in writing at the time, that it was examining the award after finalisation, but did not do so in certain cases.
	HMRC is now putting in place correct procedures for all subsequent cases, to make sure this problem does not arise again. As part of this, HMRC will also write to around 90,000 households about their 2005-06 awards to make sure they are finalised correctly.

John Hutton: The Government are today publishing the document "Next Steps on Regulatory Reform", which sets out a range of initiatives that will help realise the benefits of better regulation for businesses, third sector organisations and the public sector front line.
	I have placed copies in the Libraries of the House.
	Real progress has been made on regulatory reform in the UK over the past 10 years. The UK is taking forward an ambitious and wide-ranging regulatory reform agenda. Delivering on this is central to our overall economic aims - meeting the challenges of globalisation, improving productivity and promoting innovation - in a modern and fair society.
	Major improvements include:
	improving the stock of regulation with plans for £2 billion savings leading to a 25 per cent. cut in administrative costs by 2010; and
	progress towards a risk-based culture in regulators.
	The new Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) leads the Government's drive on better regulation. The Next Steps on Regulatory Reform document sets out how the new Department will continue to improve its own regulatory performance, plus the steps the Government as a whole will take to drive improvement.
	Action will be taken forward in three principal areas:
	A. Targeting simplifications to improve the effectiveness of regulation
	(i) BERR's own Simplification Plan
	Rethinking Consumer Protection Legislation
	BERR is launching a review of the consumer protection regime in the UK. This will:
	examine the scope for simplification of existing legislation and enhancing flexibility and future-proofing;
	explore avenues to simplify and rationalise enforcement, allowing greater targeting of action on higher risk sectors or businesses; and
	investigate the options for improving consumer empowerment and redress.
	Working to make employment law more straightforward for all parties
	BERR will be working to implement the Gibbons' Review of Employment Tribunals, and has an ambitious programme to improve the use of guidance and tools to give business more confidence in dealing with employment issues.
	(ii) Relieving the burden of health and safety risk assessment in small and lower risk businesses
	The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is launching a widely applicable set of concise, practical and sector-specific example risk assessments for a convenience store/newsagent, an estate agent and a general office cleaning contractor. These bring together in one document a sensible response to all their health and safety risk assessment requirements. Example assessments for dry cleaning, hairdressing, cold storage warehousing and catering are planned for launch in November.
	(iii) Health and Safety—improving outcomes, easing the burden on low risk businesses
	The Government, with support from HSE, are launching a review to consider, from the perspective of low-risk businesses (especially small firms), what more can be done to deliver strong health and safety outcomes in a modern working environment while minimising the burden on business and maintaining the confidence of society. The review is to report by Spring 2008.
	B. Helping people understand regulation
	(i) High quality and timely guidance
	The Government are announcing that they will improve their performance in producing good quality and timely guidance for complying with regulation which has an impact on business. This would be achieved through a package of changes including developing a code of practice for guidance and working to give greater prominence to guidance in the regulatory process.
	(ii) Better communication of change
	For the next Common Commencement Date in October 2007 the Government will pilot a new approach to providing businesses with information on regulatory change. They will produce a summary document highlighting the most important changes and ensure that this is seen by as many businesses as possible.
	C. Holding Government and regulators to account
	(i) Working with Parliament
	The Government would like to work together with key members of both Houses on how Parliament can play an even fuller part in scrutinising their work to deliver regulatory reform.
	(ii) Creating a statutory duty on regulators to address burdens
	The Government will work with regulators to frame a power which would allow such a duty to be introduced through secondary legislation at a future date. They would require those regulators whose focus is primarily on business to keep burdens under review and take action to minimise unnecessary burdens.
	(iii) Applying the principles of the Regulators' Compliance Code to public service inspectorates
	For regulators whose primary work is with business, the Government are developing a Compliance Code which puts risk based enforcement on a statutory footing. The Government will review the case for applying the principles of the code to those regulators whose principal responsibility lies in the public sector.

Kevin Brennan: I am announcing today the support the Government will provide to front-line professionals in children's services by implementing a single national IT system to support the Common Assessment Framework (eCAF).
	The Common Assessment Framework (CAF) is a key element of the Every Child Matters programme to transform children's services by supporting more effective prevention and early intervention. Its goal is to provide a standardised approach for practitioners in the holistic assessment of a child's needs and the design of an integrated service to meet those needs.
	By facilitating a greater number of early interventions, eCAF will shift the focus from dealing with the consequences of difficulties in children's lives to preventing them from happening in the first place. By facilitating better collaboration between practitioners and encouraging needs-led intervention, eCAF will directly improve the experience of service provision for children and families.
	Any given case with a child can involve multiple agencies working across borders, both geographic and organisational. It is, therefore, essential that any supporting mechanism for CAF provides practitioners from different sectors easy access to key information concerning the assessment to allow them to plan, monitor, and review a co-ordinated approach to the delivery of the most appropriate services. eCAF is the response to this need.
	eCAF will allow a practitioner to create electronically, store, and share a CAF securely. Completion of CAFs by different agencies and the subsequent exchanges of data between relevant agencies promote multi-agency working and early interventions. The complexities of cross border work are removed, as eCAF provides a consistent approach for all practitioners working in different agencies and locations, thus facilitating the effective and efficient delivery of a coordinated service.
	eCAF will only hold information about some (not all) children, with consent, and for a limited period of time. It will offer a systematic means of capturing:
	details of child/young person being assessed (i.e. name, gender, date of birth, contact details, ethnicity and immigration details);
	details that might be useful for the practitioners working with the child (i.e. child's 1st language, parent's 1st language, disability and whether an interpreter or any other special requirements are needed);
	people present at the assessment;
	details of parent/carer (i.e. name, relationship, contact details);
	family structure, described by the practitioner using free text;
	details of person undertaking assessment (i.e. name, organisation and contact details);
	name and contact number for the lead professional if applicable;
	details of other services working with the child/young person (i.e. school, GP);
	assessment summary, appropriately captured by the practitioner using free text; and consent based, planned actions, reviewing progress and a summary of the outcomes, all summarised appropriately by the practitioner using free text.
	Children, young people, or where appropriate their parents or carers will be able to ask to see their records and to challenge any inaccuracies, in accordance with Data Protection legislation.
	Using eCAF, the assessment process will be enhanced through the removal of unnecessary administration and inherent business issues, allowing practitioners to focus on activities that have the greatest impact. Business issues that eCAF will reduce include unnecessary repeat assessments, inappropriate referrals and inappropriate interventions. Efficiency gains from the reduction of these business issues are expected to yield savings estimated at £150 million over the first eight years from the inception of the national system. We do not intend to reduce funding for children's services, but instead to enable savings realised to be reinvested in more and better services for children and more effective use of staff time. We anticipate that this will enhance staff satisfaction with their jobs.
	Using proven technology, the system will be built and implemented on a single nationally, hosted infrastructure that all practitioners will use. Data will be held in a single physical location enabling practitioners to easily work together, accessing the most up-to-date information. The system will have the ability to share data with other case management systems in order to avoid duplication of input when specialist assessments are created. Locally owned systems can be modified to take advantage of this functionality.
	The Government will ensure that the eCAF system is secure, and will therefore ensure it complies with rigorous security standards. Access to it will be granted only to authorised users who have undergone appropriate checks, including those provided by the Criminal Records Bureau. Practitioner use of the eCAF system will be audited to ensure information is only accessed where it is necessary for practitioners to do so, and so guard against inappropriate access by authorised users.
	Our decision to provide a single national eCAF system has been arrived at using input from stakeholders, the lessons learnt from five local eCAF pilot systems and a comprehensive analysis of eight options, covering a range of variants, from devolved responsibility, to a more central approach.
	The Government are planning to commit one-off implementation costs estimated to be £44.5 million in total across the next six financial years (including VAT)—this includes funding to roll out the system nationally and ensure practitioners are trained to use the system properly. Operating costs, thereafter, will be £6.4 million per year (including VAT). Both set-up and running costs will be funded by central Government, so that the costs to local authorities do not form a pressure on the Council Tax.
	Implementation will be led by a dedicated project team within DCSF. The project team will work closely with stakeholders across local authorities, to ensure that developments continue to be relevant and lead to more effective practice.

Iain Wright: I have published today a consultation paper on Accounting for Leaseholders Monies which sets out proposals to amend the requirements under the 2002 Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act (the 2002 Act) for landlords to provide a regular statement of account for service charges to their tenants and for service charge monies to be held in separate designated bank accounts. A copy of the paper has been placed in the Library.
	The Government's view is that service charge payers are entitled to receive a certain minimum level of accounting information about the monies they provide. Measures contained in the 2002 Act set out to provide greater transparency and protection for service charge monies.
	Following the introduction of the 2002 Act further consultation took place with stakeholders on the content of the regulations that would provide the specific detail of how the accounting provisions would operate. A full public consultation was undertaken in June 2004. Following detailed consideration of the responses to the June 2004 paper it has been decided that our proposals for the content of the regular statement of account, requirements of the certification process and for the holding of service charges in a separate account should be revised. This was in order to examine fully whether the objectives behind the legislation could be achieved without creating unnecessary burdens upon landlords and ultimately additional charges for leaseholders that were highlighted as arising under previous proposals.
	The consultation runs until 4 October 2007 and the Government would welcome responses to their proposals up until that date.

John Healey: On 27 March 2007 my hon. Friend, the then Minister for Local Government, announced that 16 of the 26 proposals from local authorities for the creation of unitary local government would proceed to stakeholder consultation. These proposals were in response to our "Invitation to Councils" issued on 26 October 2006.
	The stakeholder consultation ended on 22 June. Since then we have reassessed the 16 proposals against the five criteria in our original invitation, having regard to all the further material and representations received as a result of that consultation and to all other currently available relevant information.
	These five criteria are that change to future unitary structures must be affordable, and be supported by a broad cross section of partners and stakeholders; and the future structures must provide strong, effective and accountable strategic leadership, deliver genuine opportunities for neighbourhood flexibility and empowerment, and deliver value for money and equity on public services.
	My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State, has now decided to proceed as follows.
	She is minded to implement the nine unitary proposals listed in table 1 below, if and when the necessary legislative provisions in the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill, which passed this House on 22 May and is currently being considered in the other place, are enacted.
	Her judgment is that there is a reasonable likelihood that all these proposals, if implemented, would achieve the outcomes specified by the five criteria, and we believe we can afford to implement them all. We do not therefore need to prioritise these proposals in order to decide which ones to implement, as explained in the written statement on the 27 March.
	These new unitaries, as they move towards implementation, will need to take into account our developing agenda for empowering citizens and communities and for stronger economic leadership, as set out in the Government's, Green Paper "Governance of Britain", published on the 3 July, and the review of sub-national economic development and regeneration, published on the 17 July. Implementation will also need to take into account the recommendations of our Councillors Commission, when it reports in November.
	We recognise on the basis of the available information that in four cases - the proposals from Bedford borough council, Chester city council, Exeter city council, and Ipswich borough council—there are risks to their achieving the outcomes specified by the affordability criterion. Accordingly, we are asking these councils to undertake further work and submit additional information on the financial viability of their proposals. We will have regard to this information along with all other relevant available information before taking final decisions, if and when the Bill is enacted.
	Implementing Bedford borough's proposal means that we must consider the future local government structures for the remaining county area. We are satisfied that this area needs unitary local government, and we intend formally to invite all the other councils in Bedfordshire to propose a unitary solution that would meet our five criteria for that remaining area.
	Once implemented these nine proposals, on the basis of councils' current estimates, will save over £150 million annually, giving councils opportunities for improved services and lower council taxes. The proposals open the door to creating new flagship councils which can lead the way on meeting today's challenges of promoting prosperity, empowering citizens and communities, and modernising local service delivery.
	
		
			 Table — 1 Proposals we are Minded to Implement 
			 Councils Submitting Proposals Pmposed unitary stmetee 
			 Bedford Borough Council Bedford Unitary 
			 Chester City Council 2 Unitary Cheshire 
			 Cornwall County Council County Unitary 
			 Durham County Council County Unitary 
			 Exeter City Council Exeter Unitary 
			 Ipswich Borough Council Ipswich Unitary 
			 Northumberland County Council County Unitary 
			 Shropshire County Council County Unitary 
			 Wiltshire County Council County Unitary 
		
	
	In addition, the Secretary of State is minded to request the Boundary Committee of the Electoral Commission to advise on Norwich city council's proposal, if and when the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill is enacted. She intends to specify in her request that the matters on which the Committee's advice is sought include whether for the areas affected by this proposal—Norwich city and the remaining Norfolk area—there could be alternative unitary solutions involving boundary changes that would meet the five criteria set out in the original invitation.
	She judges there is not a reasonable likelihood of Norwich city council's proposal, based on the city's current boundaries, if it were to be implemented, achieving all the outcomes specified by the five criteria, particularly the affordability criterion, We believe having regard to the circumstances of Norwich that alternative proposals based on revised city boundaries would achieve these outcomes.
	Further, the Secretary of State is minded not to implement the six unitary proposals which were subject to stakeholder consultation and are listed in table 2 below.
	
		
			 Table — 2 Proposals we are not Minded to Implement 
			 Councils Submitting Proposals Proposed unitary structure 
			 Bedfordshire County Council County Unitary 
			 Cheshire County Council County Unitary 
			 Cumbria Council County Unitary 
			 Northumberland Districts 2 unitary Northumberland 
			 North Yorkshire County Council County Unitary 
			 Somerset County Council County Unitary 
		
	
	For two of these proposals—from Bedfordshire county council and Cheshire county council we judge there is a reasonable likelihood that, if implemented, they would achieve the outcomes specified by the five criteria. However, these proposals are alternatives to unitary proposals that the Secretary of State is minded to implement as we believe these latter proposals are likely to deliver to a greater extent the outcomes on leadership, neighbourhood empowerment, and public services than the proposals from the county councils. For the remaining four proposals we judge there is not a reasonable likelihood of them, if implemented, achieving the outcomes specified by all the five criteria.
	I also confirm that we remain minded not to implement the 10 proposals which my hon. Friend announced in March would not proceed to stakeholder consultation.
	In all cases where unitary proposals are not proceeding, all the councils involved now need to put in place new collaborative ways of working together to promote the prosperity of their local areas, empower their citizens and communities, and modernise local service delivery. In such areas we will look to the councils together to achieve the same level of outcomes and efficiency gains as the highest performing unitary councils.
	The five pathfinder proposals from councils in Buckinghamshire, Dorset, Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire, and Suffolk, should as they are taken forward and develop, lead the way for all councils in remaining two tier areas to deliver better services and achieve efficiency gains.
	Accordingly, I am today informing the pathfinder councils that we wish to work with them with a view to their pioneering new and innovative models of two tier working as explained in our White Paper "Strong and Prosperous Communities: The Local Government" White Paper (Cm 6939-1). As indicated in the White Paper we intend these pathfinders to be subject to independent long-term evaluation. This evaluation, reporting at regular intervals, will look at both the processes of changing to new governance models and at the results the new models are delivering.

Bob Ainsworth: On the 22 May 2007, Official Report, column 67WS, the MOD announced its intention to create a new defence support group by merging together ABRO, retained DARA business units and certain other defence support facilities. I can now confirm that, following the successful conclusion of trade unions consultation, the MOD will proceed with implementation of this merger. The new support group will begin formal trading by April 2008, subject to securing the necessary parliamentary approval.
	I can also confirm that work continues to progress the sale option for DARA's Rotary Wing and components businesses. Vector Aerospace have been selected as the preferred bidder, and I hope to be able to make a definitive announcement on the way forward later this year, subject to trade unions consultation, completion of due diligence, and the satisfactory conclusion of negotiations that demonstrate the sale provides best value for defence.

Derek Twigg: I previously advised the House on 19 June 2007, Official Report, column 1752W, on 30 January 2007, Official Report, column 155W and on 8 January 2007, Official Report, column 91W that the Department has been reviewing its methods of collating figures on service personnel diagnosed with a mental health disorder. I am pleased to be able to inform the House that the review process has now been completed, and that the Defence Analytical Services Agency (DASA) will be publishing its first quarterly report based on an improved method of collecting information on its website wmv.dasa.mod.uk today. Copies will also be made available in the Library of the House.
	The Department has moved from a system of recording and reporting mental health statistics relating solely to Operation TELIC (Iraq) to a new system covering all in-service personnel assessed with a mental health disorder at the Ministry of Defence's out-patient Departments of Community Mental Health (DCMH). The report also includes a return for new in-patient admissions under the MOD's contract with the Priory Group. The new reporting system has several advantages over the old:
	It is more comprehensive because it covers all service personnel;
	It is more robust because it verifies individual records of mental disorder against other datasets—such as deployment databases;
	There is less potential for subjective bias, because individual staff members in the DCMHs are no longer being asked to make a judgment as to whether a mental disorder is attributable to a specific operation.
	The findings to date show that the numbers of service personnel assessed with a mental disorder in the first quarter of 2007 are low—around 5.8 per 1,000 strength, or 0.58 per cent. of the total armed forces population. The numbers of service personnel assessed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) during the same period are around 0.3 per 1,000 strength or 0.03 per cent. of the total armed forces population. The actual numbers of individuals affected is 41 from Iraq and 13 from Afghanistan.
	Any casualty of combat is clearly a matter of regret, and we are committed to helping those whose mental health suffers. The publication of the first results of our new method of collecting and analysing data demonstrates our continuing commitment to understanding the true relationship between service on deployed operations and mental ill-health and to making the results available to inform Parliament and the public.
	In recent years, the Department has developed pre and post deployment briefing and training to all personnel, but in particular to medical staff and the chain of command, to increase awareness of mental illness, and to mitigate the development of PTSD and other stress-related disorders occurring among service personnel. It has configured our mental health services to provide community-based mental health care in line with national best practice—establishing 15 military Departments of Community Mental Health across the UK (plus satellite centres overseas). It has introduced a Reserves Mental Health Programme to assess, and if appropriate, treat recently demobilised reserves. It has expanded the scope of its Medical Assessment Programme (MAP) at St. Thomas's hospital to provide assessments by an expert in military mental health for any veterans suffering from mental health problems since 1982. And it has been working with UK Health Departments and clinical experts to establish a new community-based arrangement that will make available to NHS health professionals expertise in the assessment and treatment of veterans' mental health problems; pilots to trial this arrangement will be launched shortly.
	I am confident that the more comprehensive quarterly reports will offer an increased understanding of mental health statistics as the dataset grows over the coming years.

Bob Ainsworth: I am pleased to announce that a 10 year partnering contract worth up to £1 billion has been signed with Rolls-Royce, for the in-service support of Nuclear Steam Raising Plants which power the Royal Navy's submarines. This contract is a key deliverable under the "Defence Industrial Strategy" published in December 2005.
	This landmark 10-year contract marks a significant departure from former practices and will transform Rolls-Royce's relationship with the Department in this sector. It will sustain the UK capability in the long-term, enable the risks and rewards to be managed jointly, and is a further example of partnering in action. Rolls-Royce and MOD will work together as a single, high-performing team, to improve performance and drive down costs. Savings of over £120 million are anticipated over the term of the contract.
	The Nuclear Steam Raising Plant drives not only our current submarines but will also power the new Astute submarines. Rolls-Royce has been supplying Nuclear Steam Raising Plants to the Royal Navy for almost 50 years from their production site at Raynesway in Derby, and this new contract will help secure the future of staff working in this part of the business.
	The contract sustains the UK's capability to support Nuclear Steam Raising Plants, as stated in the defence industrial strategy, and uses the principles of the MOD's procurement reform programme to develop more effective relationships with one of our top ten major industrial partners.
	Today marks a significant achievement in securing the UK's capability to support submarines in the future.

Dawn Primarolo: My right hon. Friend the former Minister of State (Andy Burnham) announced the outcome of a Departmental review of the progress made in reforming market entry arrangements for community pharmacies in England, 11 January 2007, Official Report, col.19ws. This report found that whilst still early days, those reforms had had a modest albeit uneven impact and identified a number of concerns.
	To address these, my right hon. Friend therefore announced a review of National Health Services pharmaceutical contractual arrangements. This would meet the commitment in paragraph 4.47 of "Our Health, Our Care, Our Say" to develop pharmaceutical contractual arrangements in line with the wider ambitions of that White Paper. He appointed Anne Galbraith, former Chair of the Prescription Pricing Authority, to lead the review.
	Anne presented her report to Ministers in the spring. We have been considering and continue to consider Anne's findings and conclusions carefully. The All Party Pharmacy Group also recently completed its own inquiry into pharmacy services, published on 26 June at http://www.appg.org.uk/inquiry.htm.
	.
	I believe it is important that we reflect further on these reports in the context of wider developments that are taking place in the NHS, and in particular the wide-ranging review which my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health (Alan Johnson) announced to the House on 4 July 2007, Official Report, col 962.
	We have therefore decided to defer responding formally to Anne's review until later this autumn. We will come forward with a White Paper, which will set out our future proposals for developing pharmacy services and any legislative reform necessary. We remain committed to pharmacy, its place in the NHS and its role in delivering quality services to patients and consumers.
	In advance of this, we are launching today a Departmental consultation on proposals to transfer to primary care trusts allocations residual money still held centrally at the Department to support NHS pharmaceutical services.
	This money, known as the "Global Sum", covers a range of fees and allowances which are payable to community pharmacies under the national contractual framework, for the provision of dispensing and other essential pharmaceutical services. Central funding also similarly pays appliance contractors, who supply patients with items such as stoma and incontinence care aids.
	This proposal, subject to Parliamentary approval, would not come into force earlier than April 2009. It would bring this funding stream into line with other funding, which already pays pharmaceutical contractors for the costs of the drugs and appliances that they dispense and align funding systems with those of other primary care professionals such as general practitioners and dentists.
	Although this is a small change to the legislation, it is important that the NHS and other organisations are given the opportunity to consider it in full prior to our introducing the necessary legislation.
	The consultation document has been placed in the Library and copies are available to hon. Members from the Vote Office. It is also available on the Department's website at http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Consultations/Liveconsultations/index.htm.
	Consultation will end on 16 October 2007. We look forward to hearing the results. Subject to the outcome of this consultation, we expect to include these proposals in the forthcoming Health and Social Care Bill.

Meg Hillier: Further to the written ministerial statement made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) on 16 February 2006, on the subject of the National DNA Database, I am pleased to announce that we are establishing an Ethics Group to be to provide Ministers with independent ethical advice on the operation and practice of the National DNA Database (NDNAD).
	The Ethics Group will be chaired by Professor Peter Hutton, Professor of Anaesthesia at the University of Birmingham. Its membership will be as follows:
	Mrs Wendy Coates
	Ms Madeleine Colvin
	Mr Michael Menlowe
	Dr Andrea Pearson
	Dr Clive Richards
	Dr Sarmeer Sarkar
	Ms Sarah Thewlis
	Dr Suzy Walton
	The Ethics Group is being established as an Advisory Non-Departmental Public Body. Its role in relation to the NDNAD will include:
	Reviewing the appropriateness of policy and practice;
	Ensuring the maintenance of high ethical standards in decision making;
	Ensuring that the public interest is properly served in relation to the way in which DNA samples and profiles are provided and stored.
	The Ethics Group will also provide advice on:
	Research applications that involve access to NDNAD samples or data;
	Operational services provided by suppliers that rely upon access to NDNAD samples or data;
	Matters referred to it by Ministers; by the NDNAD Strategy Board or on its own initiative.
	The Ethics Group will submit a formal report by the end of April each year and this will be published by the Home Office.
	I am arranging for the Protocol which will govern the operation of the Ethics Group to be placed in the Library.

Jack Straw: I am today announcing the outcome of the recent consultation on Civil Court Fees. The consultation paper was published on 2 April and the consultation closed on 25 June. Some 77 responses were received from the judiciary, legal professions and other stakeholder bodies.
	After careful consideration of these, I have, with some adjustments, decided to proceed with the changes proposed. Three statutory instruments containing the new civil, family and non-contentious probate court fees will be laid before the House tomorrow and will take effect on 1 October.
	A further statutory instrument containing the new fees for magistrates courts is still being drafted and will be laid during recess. However, this should not affect the implementation date. A report analysing the responses to consultation will be published on 1 October.
	The current system of exemptions and remissions has been replaced with a new system of concessions that will apply to all the fees orders. The scheme will be based on two distinct tests.
	The first test will determine whether the applicant is automatically entitled to a full remission of the court fee. This will apply if the applicant is currently receiving a prescribed means-tested benefit or, failing that, can demonstrate that their gross household income is below a threshold that probably entitles them to such a benefit.
	The second, more detailed test will consider both gross income and fixed out-goings to assess the, applicant's net or disposable income. The applicant may then be required to pay a contribution towards the fee based on a fraction of their disposable income. This system is a simplified version of the means test for legal aid.
	In light of the responses received, we have reconsidered the original proposals and have adjusted some of the fees accordingly, putting together a package of solutions that positively and affordably addresses the majority of concerns, those are:
	A majority agreed that the new concession should have a residual discretion to grant remission in exceptional circumstances not covered liy the means test. A clause has been added to allow this. Full training will be given to staff to understand what can and can not be considered exceptional to maximise consistency.
	Vexatious litigants who would normally be exempt from paying court fees due to financial hardship will be required to pay the full fee of an application for permission to bring a case.
	Some of the proposals for downstream civil fees have been adjusted to better reflect the cost of the stages concerned for example the fee for allocation questionnaires and listing questionnaires has changed. This has created scope to make larger reductions to some of the higher issue fees than originally proposed, meeting the criticism that these were too low.
	In the magistrates courts, a fee of £400 was proposed for appeals against the decisions of public authorities, mainly licensing decisions. Some respondents objected that this proposal was likely to deter those individuals appealing to the granting of liquor licenses in their neighbourhood. As a consequence, the definition has been amended so that it only applies to an appeal against a decision by a local authority to refuse a licence. The general fees which apply to miscellaneous magistrates civil proceedings will apply to an appeal against the granting of a licence.
	Many consultees disagreed with the scale of proposed increases to fees for ancillary matters such as oaths, copying and searches. As a consequence, a number of detailed adjustments have been made.
	The proposal to pilot daily hearing fees in the specialist commercial jurisdictions in 2008 was met with opposition from respondents representing the views of legal practitioners and the judiciary of those courts. We therefore propose to review the scope proposed, to then be the subject of a target consultation. As a result, any introduction of a scheme is unlikely to take place before 2009.

Mike O'Brien: On 9 March this year, James Purnell the former Minister for Pensions Reform, announced that Chris Lewin and Ed Sweeney, who had been appointed as external reviewers to the Deregulatory Review, had published their consultation paper. I am pleased to advise the House that I am today laying a copy of their report in the Library of the House.
	I am grateful to Chris Lewin and Ed Sweeney for all their hard work over the last seven months and for their thorough and thoughtful report.
	The purpose of the Deregulatory Review is to simplify the private pensions regulatory framework and to reduce regulatory burdens, bearing in mind the need to strike a balance between protecting members' benefits and encouraging employer provision of pensions. The review was initially announced in the May 2006 Pensions White Paper.
	We will carefully consider the recommendations and look forward to discussing them with key stakeholders. We expect to produce a full response in the autumn outlining our decisions.
	The report will be available on the Department's pensions reform internet site later today.